The United States prides itself on being a country of efficiency, especially when it comes to food. It is the home of McDonald’s, drive-thrus and coffee to go. Even in a sit-down restaurant, a meal that runs for more than an hour is almost excruciatingly long.
In France, this is not so. Mealtime, especially when shared with family and friends, is a sacred event that you must not hurry or rush. To-go cups are not offered in cafés, asking for a doggie bag is severely frowned upon, and while there are McDonald’s (affectionately called “MacDos”) and Starbucks here, the long and leisurely meals are still a huge part of French culture.
If you are invited to dinner in a French home, you should not expect it to last fewer than three hours, and more often than not there will be several courses. Last week, two of my friends and I were welcomed to a gentleman’s home for dinner. Since he is part of an association that welcomes foreign students to France by inviting them to share a home-cooked meal and to learn more about French culture first-hand, and he graciously offered to be our host.
The meal he prepared was unlike anything I had ever experienced. We started out sitting in his dining room as he passed around hors d’oeuvres of mini quiches and other small pastries. He then brought out plates of salad and salmon pâté before wowing us with a main course of roasted pork, spinach and gratin dauphinois. As if this weren’t enough to keep us full for the next three days, he cleared our plates and reappeared with a baguette and a cheese plate of brie and chèvre. But the meal was still not finished. The final course was a delicious apple tart with ice cream.
It was 7:30 when we arrived at his apartment, and by the time we left it was past 11 p.m.. Granted, we did spend a lot of time in conversation, but a meal like that was not meant to be rushed. While to us this dinner seemed quite extravagant to us, to the French it is almost a common courtesy to have so many courses when one has guests.
When I first arrived in Lyon, the dinners seemed unbelievably late to me. Most restaurants close at 2 p.m. after lunch and do not reopen until seven that evening for dinner. Nearly all of SLU’s eating areas are closed by then. I remember that my friends and I would go to Griesedieck a little after 5 p.m. to avoid the dinner rush, but here it is very common to walk by a restaurant at 10 p.m. and see people in the middle of their meal.
In Lyon, when I go out with friends to a restaurant, we make an evening of it. We sit at a table and talk, laugh, share stories, and after maybe half an hour or 45 minutes our waiter will show up. The food comes out eventually, but it never disappoints. And we always wait until long after we’ve finished eating before we try to remember who our waiter was and ask for the check.
At a restaurant, the waiter plays a minor role, only asking what you would like to drink and eat, never returning to interrupt you in the middle of a sentence. The food is important, but it never overshadows the best part of the meal: the people who are sharing it with you. In France, the best way to experience the culture is to take the time to sit down to a good meal with good people and enjoy the conversations and relationships that develop.